Recently, with the rapid development of economy, people are getting better off and, instead of striving to meet only the basic needs, have placed more and more importance on the quality of life, of which health care is an essential aspect. In the meantime, however, work pressure is increasing with the tempo of modern life, and failure to properly relax the body and mind often leads to physical and/or mental problems, causing illnesses and discomfort. While many people resort to massage or tui na for relaxation, neither of them can be practiced by an amateur on themselves with satisfactory results, for both therapies rely on the accurate application of a manual kneading force to stimulate the acupoints and regulate bodily functions.
In traditional Chinese medicine, “acupuncture, moxibustion, medication, cupping, and tui na” are collectively known as the five major therapies, wherein moxibustion is carried out by burning medicinal herbs and conducting the thermal energy thus generated into certain acupoints via the skin so as to alleviate pain and trigger the immune system through the stimulation of heat. The moxibustion therapy not only can effectively relieve fatigue but also has significant regulatory effects on blood pressure, respiration, pulses, heart rate, blood vessels, and the nervous system. As moxibustion does not require the use of needles for acupoint stimulation as does acupuncture, the former has higher public acceptance than the latter and is becoming increasingly popular.
In moxibustion, it is mainly the thermal energy that stimulates and excites the channels, network vessels, and acupoints in the body, and yet the thermal energy required is not necessarily generated by “burning medicinal herbs”. Currently, the market is supplied with moxibustion devices which generate thermal energy by electric heating and which can also be used to knead the desired spots of the user's body so that massage and tui na can be performed together with moxibustion with the assistance of heat. Please refer to FIG. 1 for a conventional moxibustion device 1 which includes a holding portion 11, a light bulb-based heat source unit 12, and a heat accumulating portion 13. The holding portion 11 is a hollow tube and is provided therein with a lamp base 110 on which the light bulb-based heat source unit 12 is mounted. The heat accumulating portion 13 covers the end of the holding portion 11 that corresponds to the light bulb-based heat source unit 12. When the light bulb-based heat source unit 12 is supplied with electricity, it projects light, and thereby transfers thermal energy, to the heat accumulating portion 13, and the moxibustion device 1 can be used in this state to knead and massage the desired spots of the body.
However, consumers' willingness to use the moxibustion device 1 and the like tends to be reduced by the following drawbacks in design, which cause inconvenience in use:
(1) Inefficient heat transfer: The moxibustion device 1 in FIG. 1 generates thermal energy through the light bulb-based heat source unit 12, which nevertheless generates both light and thermal energy when supplied with electricity. In fact, a major part of the electric energy received by the light bulb-based heat source unit 12 is converted into light; only the remaining part is converted into thermal energy. That is to say, the moxibustion device 1 has low conversion efficiency in terms of thermal energy. Besides, the light bulb-based heat source unit 12 is not in contact with the heat accumulating portion 13, so thermal energy generated by the light bulb-based heat source unit 12 can be transferred to the heat accumulating portion 13 only by radiation (i.e., through light) or convection (i.e., through air). In either case, however, partial loss of the thermal energy is inevitable during the transfer process. It can be known from the above that the heat generation mechanism of the moxibustion device 1 leaves much to be desired, especially with regard to conversion and transfer efficiency.
(2) High power consumption: Apart from the moxibustion device 1 shown in FIG. 1, moxibustion devices which generate heat through electric heating wires or plates are also available. Such electric heating wires or plates, however, consume a staggeringly large amount of electricity per unit time. This exceptionally high power consumption not only dampens the general public’ willingness to purchase like products but also hinders product promotion and sales.
(3) Non-uniform temperature distribution: As moxibustion requires pressing each desired spot of the body for a certain period of time, “temperature” and “uniform distribution of thermal energy” are key to the therapy results. Taking the moxibustion device 1 in FIG. 1 for example, the heat accumulating portion 13 is made of metal and can therefore rapidly transfer the thermal energy generated by the light bulb-based heat source unit 12 to the desired spots of the body, but if power control in the moxibustion device 1 is instable, resulting in excessively high thermal energy, the user is subject to burn damage. Some moxibustion devices have a housing made of an insulating material, whose low thermal conductivity, however, can lead to non-uniform distribution of thermal energy or failure to maintain the predetermined temperature for a long time.
Hence, the issue to be addressed by the present invention is to design a kneading moxibustion device which not only takes into account the conduction and conversion efficiency of thermal energy but also can output thermal energy stably while used for moxibustion.